Evening Falls
by Calai'di
Summary: Chris has been acting off ever since they'd come back to school after the summer, and Gauche is going to find out why. Hogwarts AU, V/Gauche


Fandom: Yugioh Zexal (Hogwarts AU)

Pairing: V/Gauche

Summary: _Chris has been acting off ever since they'd come back to school after the summer, and Gauche is going to find out why._

* * *

**Evening Falls**

Chris let out a sigh that Gauche knew from experience was the precursor to another lecture. He didn't know why. His question hadn't been _that _bad.

"Sagittarius has already almost set," Chris said after a moment. He lifted an arm to point off toward the horizon. "See those stars just above the horizon? That's the last of it."

Gauche turned his head to look and, sure enough, now that it was pointed out to him, he could vaguely recognize that that area of the sky was probably where Sagittarius was supposed to be. And that was probably the reason for the sigh. He really _should _have known that.

"Oh yeah. I guess it is a little late in the year to see it, huh?"

"Just a bit." Chris let out another sigh, but when Gauche glanced over at him, he was smiling the tiniest bit. "You know, you're supposed to have been learning this sort of thing for five years now."

Gauche shrugged and moved one of his hands behind his head like a pillow. "Yeah, but you know I was always rubbish at it."

"What did you get on your OWL?"

"An A, but only 'cause _you _refused to let me fail anything."

Chris's smile briefly transformed into a proud smirk, but he was soon staring blankly up at the stars again, seeing far more up there than Gauche ever would. Astronomy had always been his favorite subject and the one he excelled at the most.

Which, admittedly, didn't really say much, because Chris excelled at just about _everything_. He was just most passionate about Astronomy. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for Gauche to tease him about having centaur blood in his family tree somewhere.

He hadn't felt like he ought to yet this year, and he still didn't. There was something that held him back, that made him feel like Chris wouldn't appreciate it the way he used to. Something was different about Chris this year, although he hadn't had time to sit back and figure out what it was yet.

Chris had never been very lively or energetic, but he had a sense of humour and he could laugh and smile when something amused him and he could have fun when he felt like it, although that was usually when he spent time with his brothers and not nearly often enough when he was with anyone else. He had always been studious and usually had his nose in a book, even when his brothers managed to drag him to Quidditch games or when he was completely finished with his homework.

But ever since they'd come back for school this year, Chris had been withdrawn and antisocial and almost slavishly devoted to working on _something_, although no one knew what. Akari had confided in him a month into the year that Chris was usually in the library until well after curfew when he didn't have prefect duties, and Kaito had made some offhanded mention of how Chris rarely spoke any more. That had been the more concerning confession, because Kaito rarely talked to him at all and usually tried to avoid him.

His brothers had been acting out of character too, Gauche had noticed once he started looking. Michael had also been far more quiet and didn't smile as much, although the only times Gauche really saw him were meal times. Thomas, on the other hand, he saw an awful lot, and he'd been throwing a near constant temper tantrum since the first day. He'd always been a bit of a spoiled brat, but now there was genuine anger mixed in, and he'd been getting into an awful lot of detentions because of it.

Gauche sighed and turned his head to look over his friend while his friend was still distracted by staring up at the sky. Chris looked tired and stressed and like he hadn't been eating enough lately. Which he probably hadn't-it had been hard enough to convince him to come out here and relax a bit under the guise of Gauche needing help with his Astronomy homework. Which he didn't even have anymore, so Chris must have been really distracted to miss that.

"Leo is still rising, it won't be very prominent for a couple months yet," Chris murmured, and he lifted a hand to point off toward the other side of the sky. But it had taken just a bit too long for him to say it, and there was a quiet quality to his voice that hadn't been there before. Gauche had a feeling he knew he'd been staring after all.

Gauche let out a sigh that sounded more like a groan and flopped over onto his stomach, resting his chin on his arms and staring back up the lawn toward the castle.

"What's up with you lately?" he asked.

Chris tensed next to him. "What do you mean?"

"You've been acting weird since we got back to school. You didn't fail any of your OWLs, did you?"

Chris let out a faint snort that Gauche knew he was probably the only person to ever hear. He would never let his father catch him making a sound like that. Then again, he would probably never let him father catch him laying on the ground like this either.

"Do you really think I'd be upset about a poor mark or two?"

Gauche gave him a snort of his own. "Yes." But his tone was enough to make it clear that this had nothing to do with his OWLs, and of course, he'd probably gotten all Os anyway.

Chris was quiet for a long moment, more quiet than Gauche thought he should have been. Any other time, they might have bickered about this for several minutes before Chris decided they were acting to childishly and then got roped into bickering a bit more anyway. He always tried to be a good role model for his brothers, even when they weren't around and even when it made him more of a stick in the mud.

But he hadn't even looked away from the stars, and he didn't look at all tempted to even try to bicker. It was like he actually _was_grown up now instead of just trying to be.

"What happened?" Gauche asked quietly, though he didn't really expect an answer. They were friends, but they weren't that close. Not like Chris was with Kaito, or he was with Droite. And Chris wasn't speaking to Kaito, and he had even less reason to speak to him.

And Chris didn't answer for a long moment. He stared up at the stars with the slightest expression of consideration-that was another change, that his expressions, when he had them, seemed smaller and tighter now-and regarded them silently.

But then the moment was over, and he closed his eyes and said quietly, "My father had an accident."

Gauche started and half sat up, staring at him. "Is he okay?"

"He's..." Chris hesitated, biting his lip. "He's alive. He was able to get to St. Mungo's in time."

"Well, that's good isn't it?" Gauche said, although he didn't lay back down again. There were dozens of reasons why his father still being alive could be just as upsetting as if he'd actually died, and it sounded like that was probably the case here.

Chris nodded stiffly and opened his eyes again, although they were glazed over in thought. "He's...I've told you he's an Unspeakable, haven't I?"

"Only about a hundred times," Gauche muttered, "during those last couple months before our OWLs alone."

Chris didn't smile. Gauche didn't really expect him to.

"He won't tell me what happened but...I think something he was working on went wrong. He's...not really himself anymore..." Chris shook his head and smiled a bitter smile than had never been on his face before. "Well, sometimes he is. Sometimes he's exactly the same except for the spell damage. But at others...he wouldn't stay at St. Mungo's. When they told us his condition was stable, he made us take him home. He wouldn't have done that before..."

Gauche slowly lowered himself back to the ground, although he kept staring at his friend rather than looking back at the castle. Even though he'd said a lot more than Gauche had expected, Chris was still being incredibly evasive about exactly what had happened, and that only made it seem considerably worse than he was making it out to be. And spell damage...that could be anything, and it was pretty much always awful.

He couldn't understand what got into the heads of these wizards who experimented with magic all day and usually ended up in St. Mungo's because of it. He was happy using the spells and knowledge they already had, thanks. He had no idea why Chris couldn't be happy doing the same thing.

Well, no, he could sort of understand. Because it was Chris, and Chris devoured knowledge and walked happily in his father's footsteps.

No wonder this had hit him so hard, whatever it was.

"So you've been trying to figure out what he did and what to do to fix it?" Gauche said after a moment.

Chris tensed again, for a brief second. Maybe he hadn't thought anyone would notice? "Yes. But I don't know if I'll be able to help...I feel like I'd be more help at home. I didn't want to come back this year, you know. I wanted to stay home with Father, but he wouldn't allow it..."

Gauche thought his father had made an excellent decision. "Well, you've still got family here to look out for, right?"

"Yes, that's what Father said, too," Chris murmured.

"And you know, you don't have to do all this alone." Gauche reached over to squeeze his shoulder and grinned. "You've got friends who'd be willing to help if they knew what was going on. I bet I've got more free time than you; I bet you're still taking all the classes you were, huh?"

Chris frowned at him, maybe to say that of course he was, maybe just because he didn't understand what had just been offered. "You would?"

"Sure I would. And so would Droite, Akari, and Kaito I bet. That's what friends are for."

Chris stared at him with a look so bewildered it was hard not to laugh. The hat really should have made him a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff, whether he'd fit in there or not, just so he might have had a chance of learning that ages ago.

"You really thought you just had to suffer alone, didn't you?"

Chris hastily looked back up at the sky. "I'm hardly alone."

"Yeah, well your brothers haven't been saying much either." Which was its own problem, and he thought he ought to talk to both of them too pretty soon. "And you can't all be together all the time."

Chris frowned and said nothing. But after a moment, he reached up and grabbed Gauche's hand to squeeze it tightly, maybe a little too tightly. Gauche swallowed a wince and let him, although after another moment, he shifted his hand enough to squeeze back.

"Thank you," Chris murmured finally. "I don't want to talk about this anymore tonight, but you could meet me in the library during lunch tomorrow."

"Yeah, all right. After we've had a chance to eat something."

Chris didn't argue that, either the condition or the "we", which was just fine with Gauche, really. He only nodded and murmured, "And look after Thomas. He's been...upset."

"I'll find someone to look after Michael too," Gauche said with a smile.

Chris didn't smile back, but he did look a bit more relaxed than he had in weeks. He squeezed Gauche's hand again and went back to silently staring up at the stars.

Gauche wasn't sure how long they laid there. After a while, he closed his eyes and ended up drifting off into a doze. But he was very aware of the hand still holding his, and when dozed, he dreamt of stars.


End file.
